Halloween Window Cleaning & Eggs

Window cleaners, Frankenstein (Horemo Reyes) and the Wolfman (Jorge Estrada) pictured as they worked their way down the Wells Fargo’s Duke Energy Center.

Window washing monsters: A team of window washers from Scottie's Building Services celebrated Halloween by dressing up as Frankenstein (Horemo Reyes) and the Wolfman (Jorge Estrada) as they worked their way down the Wells Fargo’s Duke Energy Center on Friday October 30, 2015. Reyes, who has washed high rise windows for about 10 years says this is the first year he decided to work in costume.

How to clean egg off windows - Halloween Window Clean - Year after year our phone starts ringing after Halloween because trick or treat often means “give us a treat or we will egg your windows!”  Is a very sad state of affairs but don’t despair, here is our guide to cleaning egg from your windows.

How to clean egg off windows: The first point to make is that egg is like glue. When it drys it really takes some shifting.  So if you see egg on your windows the first thing to do is to clean it off before it drys.  This can be done just by squirting your window with a hose pipe.  It will leave a horrible drying mark, but at least this will come off easily when your windows are next cleaned by your regular window cleaner. If it is a downstairs window that you can reach, use soft sponge and some washing up liquid.  Allow it to dry a little then buff up the window with some kitchen towel.

If you are unfortunate and the egg has dried onto the window then it is going to be a little more tricky.  If the window is downstairs and you can reach, the best tool to use is a decorators glass scraper.  These are available from most DIY stores for about a pound.  Scrape the glass and finish by cleaning the window as described above.

If the window is upstairs and you don’t want to risk getting the ladder out, then wait for your window cleaner to arrive.  To be honest once the egg dries on the glass then it will no more tricky to remove the egg from the glass if you wait days or weeks.  Good window cleaners will have a professional window cleaners scraper that fits onto a pole. The window cleaner can then remove the egg from the glass safely.  It isn’t worth purchasing the tool your self as a pack of blades for a professional window cleaners scraper will set you back £20.00 and in many cases this alone outweighs the price of the window cleaner removing the egg for you.  The window cleaner will also be more used to using a scraper at a distance and will more than likely do a better job.

Eggs are difficult to remove from a home's exterior, especially when they dry. However, with some elbow grease and proper preparation, you can simplify the egg removal process.

How to Wash Egg off a House (Wall):  Egging a house has been a longtime prank of vandals. As anyone who has been the victim of egging can attest to, eggs are difficult to remove from a home's exterior, especially when they dry. However, with some elbow grease and proper preparation, you can simplify the egg removal process. Here are some suggestions for how to wash egg off a house. 

1. Start cleaning your house as soon as possible. The longer the eggs are on your house, the more they will stick to the exterior surfaces. Due to their high moisture content, eggs remove somewhat easily when the egging is fresh. Prepare cleaning supplies as soon as you notice that your house has been egged.

2. Prepare a bucket of warm water. The water should not be hot. Hot water will cook the eggs and make them stick even more to the exterior of your home. Eggs are protein-based, so they cook quickly (and stick quickly) when exposed to heat. A bucket of warm water from the faucet will give you a good start in removing the egg from your home.

3. Hose the eggs off the exterior of your house. Get out the garden hose and spray the area below where the eggs are present on your siding or other surface. By washing down the area below the eggs, you are creating a surface that they can run down once they are removed. If you don't hose down the area below the eggs, they may stick to the siding. After washing below, spray directly above the egged area. Many times the water running down the surface of the siding is enough to remove the eggs. If you choose to directly spray the egged area without spraying anything else, you run the risk of splattering the eggs and making a worse mess on your home.

4. Use a cleanser with a high alkaline base to scrub the eggs. Sometimes the eggs won't come off any other way than scrubbing them. A cleanser with a high alkaline base works well to break down the protein structure of the egg. Many household cleaners or de-greasers are effective. Look at the pH level in each product. The higher the pH level, the higher the alkaline content.

5. Scrub the area with a brush. Dip the brush into the cleanser or spray the cleanser on the scrub brush, then rub the eggs off of the house's exterior. If necessary, use a long-handled brush or a ladder to reach stains. Rinse the area with warm water. If the stains persist, scrub harder. If the eggs have dried, you may have to scrub and rinse several times to remove them. Repeat this step several times, if necessary.

Window Cleaners Smile - Glass Walls Trending In New & Old Homes

Growing Panes: Homeowners Go Big on Glass Walls - Anita and Bob Dethlefs wanted the new Portland, Ore. home they were building to really let the sunshine in. So, the couple installed 2,700 square feet of Marvin windows—about $300,000 worth—on nearly every wall of the property. And then they put up 12 security cameras. "We're getting about as much light as you can in the Northwest but with so many windows, safety was the No. 1 concern for me as a mommy with kids running around the house," says 43-year-old Ms. Dethlefs, who has five children. Her husband started a leadership conference business, Evanta Inc., in 2003 and later sold it. Their 13,000-square-foot, $5 million Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home even has a glass front door, letting visitors on the front stoop see through the family's living room out to Mount Hood.

Forget about a room with a view. Today, homeowners want views from every room. As large expanses of glass have become architecturally acceptable for modern and traditional homes, new technology is making living in a fishbowl more practical—albeit sometimes challenging. Homeowners' desire for more open floor plans with combined kitchen and living-room spaces has paved the way structurally for bigger spreads of glass. A growing appetite for more energy-efficient windows and associated tax incentives and rebates have also supported the trend.  "The open floor plan is predominant in almost everyone's design now," says builder Tim Wilkinson of Great Falls, Mont. "They want more light and bigger windows to take advantage of views."

Today, thanks to technological advances, nearly all windows installed in new homes have special, invisible coatings that block heat and keep ultraviolet rays from fading furniture. Many also use double or triple-panes with argon or krypton gas sandwiched in between, which helps insulate in cold climates. Now standard on Andersen Windows glass: a titanium dioxide coating the company says sheds dirt and virtually eliminates water spots. Some glass makers are even marketing windows for residences that can tint and untint with the push of a button.

And for those put off by the prospect of raising and lowering so many blinds, companies such as Lutron Electronics sell window shades that can be controlled with an iPhone app. "Across the board, people want more light," says Mike Rogers, senior vice president of GreenHomes America Inc., a company specializing in energy-efficient home renovations, which has been incorporating more glass in its projects. Beyond privacy and safety—Ms. Dethlefs's chief worries—there are maintenance issues, such as how to keep so much glass spotless. (The couple pay $850 to $950 for professional cleaning at least three times a year.) And despite technological improvements, glass still doesn't typically insulate as well as a wall packed with insulation.

Then there is the bird problem: Anywhere from 100 million to 1 billion are killed in window collisions every year, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. While manufacturers such as Andersen Corp. and Marvin Windows and Doors say overall window sales have slowed amid a sluggish new-house market, the companies say they are seeing more and larger windows going into new homes. In modern homes, "they are filling space between floor and ceiling with as much glass as they can," says Jay Sandgren, an architectural representative for Andersen. He says builders are being "a lot smarter" about positioning a home and the roof overhang to capture the most sunlight in winter and to block much of the heat from the sun in summer.

Building with glass isn't cheap. Mr. Wilkinson the Montana builder estimates the price is about double the cost of installing regular walls packed with insulation. His own 4,800-square-foot home that he completed last year has $85,000 worth of Andersen glass, giving him a 240-degree view of three mountain ranges and the Missouri River. Even the deck railings are glass panels.

Tempered safety glass is installed according to local building codes in areas of homes where breakage might be of particular concern, such as windows and doors close to the floor or near a stairway or landing. Glass can sometimes attract vandals in the construction phase, a headache for builders, Mr. Wilkinson says. But breakage for homeowners "is rarely a problem," he says, although he cautions that people mowing the lawn should look out for rocks that the mower can kick out to crack a pane.

Architect Thomas Roszak took the fishbowl aesthetic to the extreme in his own Northfield, Ill. home, which features commercial curtain-wall glass around the entire building.The walls are constructed from two argon-filled glass panes covered with what's called low-emissivity, or "low-e," metallic coating to block heat flow through the window, keeping the home cooler in the summer and warmer in winter.

With little traditional wall space, art is suspended in front of windows from a floor-to-ceiling, museum-type wire hanging system, Mr. Roszak says. For privacy, he planted trees around his one-acre property and installed $60,000 worth of electronically operated blinds. One low point of glass-house design: The day his 8-year-old son spied a dead bird that had hit home's glass siding, likely mistaking the trees' reflection for safe habitat. "He said, 'Daddy, I don't think that bird is sleeping, I think it's broken,'" Mr. Roszak says.

Glass homeowners must be mindful of clutter, since the view goes both ways. When Beata and Brad Peters built their 3,900-square-foot brick home in Hawthorn Woods, Ill., they incorporated large panels of glass symmetrically throughout. While most windows have wood blinds, the family tends to leave them open for aesthetics. "I don't put a lot of stuff in front of the windows," Ms. Peters says. In the kitchen, appliances like toasters get packed along a wall with no glass.

Window-treatment companies are pushing to make shade operation less of a chore. Rotterdam-based Hunter Douglas this spring added a "Solar Energy Sensor" that raises and lowers blinds based on the amount of sun detected. Despite the slump in the housing market, the company's North American sales rose almost 5% last year. An electronically controlled Lutron shade sells for about $900 more than manual ones and can be controlled via remote control or an app for Apple Inc. or Android devices.

Some glass companies now make windows that reduce the need for blinds altogether. One is Sage Electrochromics Inc. of Faribault, Minn., whose product consists of clear panes that morph to a grayish-blue tint when a user flips a switch to send a low-voltage current across the window. The tint reduces glare and heat but not visibility. Sage began selling the glass for residential applications around 2005, though they are typically found in high-end homes due to cost. An installed window costs between one-and-a-half to two times as much as one with typical low-e glass. "If you're on the West Coast facing the ocean when the sun is beating on the glass, what people do is pull their blinds and shades to block the glare," says Helen Sanders, Sage's vice president of technical business development. "What that means is you've just lost your view you paid a huge amount of money for."

Modern architect’s glass is half full: In 1921, German architect Mies van der Rohe designed an all-glass skyscraper which, while never built, foreshadowed the countless glass-clad skyscrapers that would rise in cities around the world during the 20th century. As demonstrated by KGP’s Bikestation, iconic architecture in glass doesn’t have to be high or huge in scale. One of architect Philip Johnson’s most notable works is his one-story, modestly-sized but very elegant all-glass house built in 1949 in New Canaan, Conn. A simple rectangle in plan and elevation, Johnson’s transparent, minimalist house is enclosed entirely with large glass panels. Only the interior bathroom is opaquely clad. On a large landscaped parcel with no close neighbors, Johnson’s house needed no curtains or shades.

Of course, Johnson was not averse to grandiosity. Perhaps inspired by Paxton’s Crystal Palace, Johnson designed the daylight-filled Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, Calif., completed in 1980. An enormous religious sanctuary seating more than 2,700 worshipers, the Crystal Cathedral’s skin was constructed using 10,000 rectangular panes of glass. Today the building is for sale. A few years ago, the city of Seattle built a new library with a faceted skin composed only of diamond-shaped glass panels, some clear and some opaque. Designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the 11-story library is an abstractly shaped, dramatically angular form covering an entire downtown block. Equally dramatic interior spaces are brightly suffused with daylight, even when it rains, a benefit much appreciated in Seattle.

State-of-the-art curtain wall technology allows architects to wrap buildings with increasingly large sheets of glass, to support glass with ever-thinner framing elements and hardware and to construct ever more complex glass skins. Glass can be manufactured using permanent coatings, surface etching and laminations to create artistic patterns, modulate light transmission, block solar radiation or sustain high impact forces. Energy-efficient glass, resisting conduction and radiation of heat, has made all-glass facades increasingly feasible. And by optimizing the amount of daylight reaching building interiors, a glass skin significantly reduces electric lighting needs and energy consumption. Now viewed as a relatively “green” building material, today’s glass is indeed not your father’s glass.

Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect and a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland.